Four Recordings from a Distance: klank.ist ensemble, 2020
Uzaktan, Lockdown_2, Lockdown_1 and 1.5: the singles that open the catalogue.
The Nyxphere catalogue does not open with an album. It opens with four singles, released within five weeks of each other in the autumn of 2020, all of them made by members of klank.ist ensemble in Istanbul while the city was shut. They were recorded apart, in flats in Tarabya and Kurtuluş and wherever else the five players found themselves, and assembled together afterwards. They are the sound of a group learning to play in a room that did not exist, and they are the right place for a label built on distance to begin.
NYX 001 — Uzaktan
Uzaktan means from afar. It is an electroacoustic piece by Merve Salgar and Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu, recorded in April 2020 between Tarabya and Kurtuluş, two neighbourhoods on opposite sides of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, in the first weeks of the first lockdown. Cello and piano, listened to across water. Salgar took the cover photograph. It is the earliest recording on the label and the first number on the shelf.
NYX 002 and 003 — Lockdown_2 and Lockdown_1
The two Lockdown recordings are the full ensemble at a distance: Merve Salgar, Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu, Eda Er, Fulya Uçanok and Aslı Kobaner, each in her own room. The numbering follows the dates the audio went out, which is why the second comes first. Lockdown_1, filmed in May 2020, is the quieter and stranger of the two: Salgar on tanbur, Er on synth and voice, Kobaner on acoustic guitar, Hatipoğlu on cello, Uçanok on amplified objects, five rooms in one mix. Lockdown_2, filmed in July, shifts the instruments around: Er on synth and drum machine, Hatipoğlu on cello, Salgar and Uçanok on piano, Kobaner on guitar, with a video by Merve Salgar. Both were mixed and mastered by Eda Er, who also made the cover for the second.
NYX 004 — 1.5
“Distancing, the new normal.” 1.5, the safe distance in metres, is an electroacoustic track for voice, electronics and electric guitar by Eda Er and Aslı Kobaner, the second duo project to come out of the ensemble’s quarantine period. Recorded in May 2020 in Istanbul, it is the most concentrated of the four: two players, one line of thought, the space between them measured exactly.
Why they are here
These four are modest recordings and they know it. But the collective they came from, klank.ist, was founded on the idea that a group can be built on exchange rather than on a single address, and its later Sonic Cartographies series, concerts in one city performing video scores written in another, grew directly out of the months these singles document. The ensemble’s studio album V. DİALOGS, recorded the year before, shows what they sound like in one room. These show what they sound like when the room is taken away.
Uzaktan — Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu and Merve Salgar. Recorded April 2020, Istanbul. Cover photo: Merve Salgar. Released 4 September 2020.
Lockdown_2 — klank.ist ensemble: Eda Er (synth, drum machine), Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu (cello), Merve Salgar (piano), Aslı Kobaner (guitar), Fulya Uçanok (piano). Video: Merve Salgar. Mix, mastering, cover: Eda Er. Released 4 September 2020.
Lockdown_1 — klank.ist ensemble: Merve Salgar (tanbur), Eda Er (synth, voice), Aslı Kobaner (acoustic guitar), Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu (cello), Fulya Uçanok (amplified objects). Mix, mastering: Eda Er. Released 8 September 2020.
1.5 — Eda Er (voice, electronics) and Aslı Kobaner (electric guitar). Recorded May 2020, Istanbul. Released 8 October 2020.
All four at klankist.bandcamp.com and nyxphere.bandcamp.com.